100 years ago in The Saratogian: Feb. 7

Thursday. Feb. 7, 1918

Saratoga Springs police still don’t know who shot Luigi Cosco on February 5, but they know more about the victim, who is wanted in Brooklyn for murder.

Cosco, who sustained a non-life threatening wound to the chest, is moved from Saratoga Hospital to police headquarters after superintendent James H. King consults with Dr. Douglas C. Moriarta, who’s been treating the victim.

“No particulars regarding the murder have been received here,” The Saratogian reports, “It is presumed, however, that Cosco was implicated in a shooting scrape in Brooklyn, that he fled to Tro, and then to Saratoga, being followed by a friend of his Brooklyn victim, who shot him while on Congress Street and then made his escape.”

Brooklyn investigators learned about Cosco’s shooting from the Troy police after the story appeared in Collar City newspapers. A Brooklyn detective who takes the prisoner away tonight explains that Cosco allegedly killed Joseph Itoloto over a thirty-cent bar bill last October.

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Plagiarism

The Saratogian recently reprinted a poem from a Boston newspaper credited to a former Saratoga Springs man, Private John Francis Xavier Murphy, currently stationed at Camp Devens in Ayer MA. The paper reports today that Murphy plagiarized the verses from “The Quitter,” by popular poet Robert W. Service.

After the New York Telegraph broke the story, a Saratogian reporter writes that he “did a little investigating on his own account” after “recalling something familiar about the words.” He determined that “It certainly is a good poem. Robert W. Service thought so after he wrote it.” Despite his realization, the reporter decided to let Murphy “get away with it.”

Murphy submitted the poem to a superior officer who had copies made and posted throughout the camp to boost morale. It’s not clear whether Murphy claimed it as his own then, but he didn’t correct anyone who credited it to him.

“You asked me who wrote that paper on the wall. I did,” Murphy told the Telegraph, “I did, typewrited it, out of Mr. Service’s corking good book of poems. Cheered the boys up a bit.”

Correction

The Saratogian reported earlier this week that a county jury was split 9-3 in favor of acquitting John Flynn, who was accused of selling alcohol illegally in Corinth. While the hung jury was a front-page story, an update to the story appears on the back page of today’s edition.

According to Rev. Frederick A. Gates of Corinth Presbyterian Church, the reporter got the votes backward. Gates, who is “greatly interested in the enforcement of the liquor law,” says jurors voted 9-3 for conviction. Flynn remains free just the same.